Which Babbitt is preferred for car wheel work. Is it the lead based or high tin babbitt. The lead based babbitt, I read, is preffered in service where dirt, gravel etc is encountered. That should be a clue. Also when salvaging babbitt is it ok to remelt and reuse, after the dross is skimmed of course. Or should new babbitt be used?

That would be a tin based babbitt. I am sure someone here would have the exact AAR or MCB spec. to cite.

The rule of thumb is to use no more than 50% old babbitt when pouring new bearings, and preferably less than that. However, given the price of new tin based babbitt I would not hesitate to use higher percentages of old babbitt especially in light service bearings. Apparently when babbitt is remelted one of the alloying metals will tend to vaporize changing the composition of the mix. Also, foreign matter can be trapped in the metal, especially little bits of iron or steel that do not settle out in the ladle.

I guess we would need to know a little more about your application. You mention car wheel work, so I assume you are discussing plain journal bearings. Those usually have a thin layer of babbitt on the brass.

I have salvaged babbit from rail car bearings when I was an Asst. Superintendent for a railroad maintenance and repair company. I had the babbit analysed after the melt and found it compared very favorable to new babbit. I then sent several shipments to OERM for use in re-babbiting bearings.
OERM found a considrable savings in cost and very useable babbit. Contact John Smatlak for his view on this subject.

I just wish I had more bearings to salvage - I also made money on the brass through sales to a salvage yard.

Where would one find a source of new pillow blocks for journal renewal? I'm curious what anyone has found worked well and what composition babbitt works best.

Not sure where you are going with the above question. I do a lot of work with enthusiasts of Old Wood Working Machines and many of them are 'Babbit Kings'. What I envision for pillow blocks in your post probably needs to have new ones of cast iron. Patterns for those are fairly simple, or sometimes a foundry can cast copies from an original. Cattail Foundry in PA is Amish based and does good work at a reasonable price. I believe Emmanual King is the proprietor. There are several other small operations, almost hobby foundries really, that work in auto restoration, farm machinery, etc. The blocks are usually not simple cylinders, may have reservoirs, oil ports cast in, may have lands or grooves to help hold the babbit liner, especially if there is linear thrust on the bearing. If you are making the pattern yourself remember to introduce the shrink factor for gray iron, and understand this will need machining, drilling of holes, etc by you.

Bob Kutella

A couple of references show the applicable AAR standard as being M-501-34, but a check of their website did not show that document being available as a PDF.

PC

Just the type and source of stock babbitt for pouring in journals and guides for railroad use.

The most recent edition of AAR M-501, "Bearings, Journal, Lined" I have is 1984.

In this document the composition of babbitt for railway journal bearings is:

Tin..........................................................2.5 to 4.5 %
Antimony, not less than......................................8.0 %
Tin and Antimony......................................10.5 to 14 %
Arsenic, maximum................................................0.2%
Copper, maximum................................................0.5%
Sum of tin, atimony, lead and arsenic, minimum.....99.25%
Remainder, maximum..........................................0.75%

At OERM we adopted the bearing metal and babbitt formulas used by Magnus Foundry, used for traction motor support bearings and freight car journal bearings.

Major Elements

Babbitt Lining
Copper trace
Lead 81.5 – 89.5%
Tin 2.5 - 5.5%
Zinc trace
Antimony 8.0 – 11.5%
Nickel trace
Additional trace elements: Manganese, Arsenic, Cadmium

Bearing Bronze
Copper 66.0 - 79.5%
Lead 15.0 – 22.0%
Tin 4.5 – 6.5%
Zinc 1.0 – 3.0%
Antimony 1.0% maximum
Nickel 1.0% maximum
Additional trace elements: Manganese, Arsenic, Cadmium

Physical Data
Boiling Points
Copper 4653°
Lead 3164°
Tin 4100°
Zinc 1665°
Antimony 3182°
Nickel 4946°

Molten state operating temperatures are approximately 1850° – 2150 °

The 1949 AAR M-501 48 on babbitt is the same as the 1984 numbers.

The only difference is that the Tin amount is listed as; "as specified" but it also has the Tin and antimony total of 10-14%, so its the same composition and has been for a very long time.

The difficult part is finding someone to pour lead based babbitt, and Red leaded brass/bronze. Its accurate name is Bronze when the lead content is this high. Most of the foundries casting these leaded alloys went out of business or "got the lead out", and went to lead free brass & aluminum, so as not to have the EPA watching over them quite so intensely as before. There is one small babbitt foundry out in Odessa Texas, that I talked some years ago, that would apply and re-apply babbitt to existing bearing brasses. They might be an option for you, if you need them.

If you find a good foundry pouring the red bronze and other leaded bronzes and brasses, and that want our some times very small quantities, please post their contact info here.

The foundry in the Odessa area still uses babbitt when I talked to them about 2 years ago. His comment was that babbitt was getting more expensive as the bulk price was costing him $10.00 per pound. With the fluctuations in metal prices, that price is probably low by now.

I use a local foundry here in Dallas that still pours red brass and bronzes but will not pour high lead castings. EPA is a real threat to them and the foundry is very careful on mixtures. They do small and medium size orders for me when I need them.

Pennsylvania Trolley Museum's source for babbit applications has been A-1 Babbit Co. of Donora, PA. They have done both axle bearings and motor shaft bearings for us.

Greetings:
Jensen Machine Co. in Newington, CT does centrifical babbitting, an excellent method for cylindrical bearings.
J.David

I believe I may be renewing the surfaces of a lot of journal brasses in the not-so-distant future. I have a small amount of new babbitt stock on hand, but I don't think it's going to be enough. Someone mentioned that melting used babbitt and re-pouring the same changed its characteristics. If this thought could be expounded I am interested in hearing about it.

Also, am I understanding correctly that some of you are having journals sent to an outside party for renewing, or did I misunderstand?

That dross you mentioned in your first post is oxides of the various metals that make up the alloy, but in any alloy, the component metals don't all oxidize at the same rate, so the more times Babbitt is re-melted, or the longer it cooks in the pot, the further away it gets from its intended composition. Which is one reason for the rule of thumb no re-use no more than 50% in any given pour. Shops that did large amounts of this work, back in the day, would send samples to the lab for analysis and make up the individual elements, but I think that's out of reach for an occasional user.